


Fade Fruit: A Cautionary Tale

by cinni_spacedust



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M, Fade to Black, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Angst, In the Fade, Lavellan/Solas Angst (Dragon Age), Lavellan/Solas Fluff (Dragon Age), Light Angst, One Shot, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Romance, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Solas Fluff Friday, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 18:44:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20698262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinni_spacedust/pseuds/cinni_spacedust
Summary: Having trouble sleeping? Here, take this tea. It'll have you sleeping dreamlessly in no time.Oops, did you end up in the Fade? That's fine, just...be careful not to accept any fruit from strangers.And, whatever you do, don't let the strangers start telling you stories.





	Fade Fruit: A Cautionary Tale

She boiled a root and petal concoction and strained herself a cup. The tea's pungent fumes had her head instantly fogging. It only took three eye-twitching sips for her vision to blur and her movements to slow.

With luck, the tea’s welcome oblivion would claim her for tonight and the better half of tomorrow. 

Tonight she was pleased to have been afforded a window of opportunity for sleep. She wasn’t needed for any more questioning or plan-making. They’d wrung out every last drop of information she could recollect from her tragic confrontation with Solas beyond the mirror. 

Now, drained of usefulness, she could leave the strategizing to those more capable and cast her husk of a body across a mattress. No stranger to the sleep-inducing tea (an old family recipe), she trusted it to take her swiftly down into the dreamless deep. 

Her trust in the tea, it seemed, was poorly placed. 

* * *

Her nose was the first of her senses to stir, coaxed into consciousness when tickled by an earthy breeze. Next, her ears. They caught the drone of bees bobbing through a nearby berry bush. She scratched the base of her nose and resisted the urge to sneeze. Finally, she let her eyes flutter open. 

Sky. Not tent. 

Either someone had stealthily packed up her sleeping arrangements while she slept. Or– 

‘The Fade,’ she sighed, burying her fingers into the patch of grass upon which her dreams had deposited her. 

So much for dreamless bliss. Had she made an error in the recipe? Whatever the case, she’d probably be stuck here for hours. Maybe even days if nobody ventured into her tent to wake her.

‘Damn it. Damn the tea.’

‘I second that damnation of tea.’ 

Her body tensed and her heart hammered hard against her chest. 

‘Solas,’ she hissed. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Am I not more entitled to that question than you? I was here first.’ He watched her glare silently up at the sky for a moment, then asked ‘Why _are_ you here?’

‘Didn’t you hear me? The tea didn’t work.’

‘Or maybe it worked too well?’ More silence. ‘Do you intend to stay? I wouldn’t mind the company.’

She propped herself up on her elbow and took in her surroundings with renewed focus. It was the same ruin in which the inquisition had made camp. In this version of the ruin, however, a chaos of honeysuckle resided in place of the tents, and gentle evening birdsong replaced the rowdy fireside banter she’d overheard while drifting off. 

Her most critical observation was the simple fact that she and Solas were alone; a fact that dealt uneasiness and relief in equal parts. With eyes fixed upon a wall that was not Solas, she readied herself for uncomfortable conversation-making. 

‘I'll be here until the tea wears off, I suppose.’

‘I never thought I’d find myself so grateful for the existence of tea,’ he laughed, every consonant as light as leaf rustling. ‘I hoped I’d see you here.’

‘Hoped? But, you seemed surprised to see me?’ She shook her head. ‘Your spies must keep you well informed if you know exactly when and where I’ve gone to sleep. _Fade stalker_.’

‘I only meant that you haven’t made an appearance in weeks.’

Apparently they were dodging further examinations of the suspicious convenience that had landed them in the same dreamscape. 

‘I’ve had trouble sleeping,’ she explained, putting the weight of blame in every syllable.

In the corner of her eye, she caught him nodding with solemn understanding. They both watched in silence as an inquisitive fennec cut a cautious path between them, stopping to sniff at a mossy cluster of roots on its way through the ruins.

‘And, your arm?’ Solas asked. 

Her fingers brushed across the knot she’d tied in the half-empty sleeve of her nightshirt. 

‘Does it… Is there still pain?’

‘Please don’t,’ she said cuttingly. ‘Let’s not start.’

‘As you wish.’

She hauled herself up from her patch of grass and stretched, careful not to let her nightshirt creep above her bare thighs in the midst of the motion. 

Solas remained under his tree, with his back against the trunk and his legs sprawled in various angles of comfort. Having finally accepted her reluctance to meet his eyes, he returned his attention to a half-eaten apple. When he’d finished it, he reached up and selected another from the fruit-laden branches above his head. This, he offered to her.

‘Can I tempt you?’ he asked. She eyed the fruit suspiciously. ‘It isn’t poisoned.’

‘When a trickster god offers you fade fruit, why take the chance?’

‘That sounds like the premise for a cautionary tale the Dalish might have told to keep children from fraternising with strangers.’

She smirked despite herself, ‘I suppose it does. Come to think of it, my aunt used to tell such a tale. It had a terrible ending, as you can probably imagine.’

He leaned forward and rested his jaw in his palm. The light and shadows cast by the branches above him played upon his face like a glittering mask. It took considerable effort to tear her eyes from the unexpectedly hypnotic image.

‘Will you share your aunt’s story with me?’ he asked, voice low and leisurely. ‘I’m in the mood for storytelling.’

‘I will not,’ she replied, reaching for an apple that she deemed far enough away from Solas to be safe. ‘You are the expert storyteller. If you want to hear a story, you must tell it yourself.’

‘A story for a story,’ he proposed. ‘I’ll exchange one for your aunt’s. Do we have a deal?’

‘Why do childhood fables entice you so, Solas?’ 

Hearing his name seemed to startle him. ‘I’m anxious to know what becomes of those who accept forbidden fruit from trickster gods.’

‘Of course you are.’

She cleaned her apple on her hip and noted that the fabric was thin enough to reveal the freckles that lay beneath. Solas had probably seen more than he bargained for by now. Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing much more than a simple nightshirt himself, which placed them on an even playing field. 

She considered with mild amusement just how starkly these meeting conditions contrasted with their last confrontation. He had paced about, resplendent in a full suit of shimmering gold armour. She had collapsed in a pool of pain, green plasma spewing from her anchor arm. 

Never a dull moment. 

With her single apple harvested, she moved away from Solas and perched herself on a stony mound that might have been a staircase once. Taking the fruit to her lips, she inhaled the sweet-and-sour aroma and indulged a series of generous bites. She felt the full attention of Solas as her mouth met the glossy flesh.

‘Alright. You should go first,’ she suggested between bites.

His deal accepted, Solas smiled with satisfaction. ‘What sort of story would you like me to tell?’

‘How does such a beautiful home become overgrown? Who lived here before the berry bushes and nesting birds? How did such an enormous apple tree take root in its grand entranceway? Tell me the history of this house, and be sure to give it a happy ending. I could use a happy ending right now.’

Solas went obediently to the tallest and most intact of the crumbling walls. His fingertips brushed along the wind-worn stone and his eyes closed in focus. He drew ancient memories from the masonry and prepared himself to weave the slew of images into the fabric of a story. 

The wind settled. The bees retired. Beyond the ruin, rays of setting sunlight introduced a rich pigment that stained the white clouds pink. With a spreading of hands and a parting of lips, Solas began to spin his story. 

Or rather, to cast his spell. 

His voice pressed upon her heart a feeling of deep homesickness. The incantation that was his songlike lilt and cadence ensorceled her, as it had so many times before. She became captivated wholly by the heartbeat rhythm of his wordplay, allowing it to spirit her away to all the times and places that he conjured. Much could be forgotten to the tune of Solas reciting stories. Perhaps too much.

When she sensed he was nearing the end of his tale, she began to pepper him with well-placed questions. An effective tactic; Solas could never resist diving deeper down the burrows of conversation that she would dig for him with copious requests for more information. 

They’d taken a detailed tour of the ruined house before he eventually caught on. 

‘Come now! Stop exploiting my weaknesses,’ he chuckled, offering a hand to help her down from a wall that they had scaled to better view the building. ‘You know, you’re only delaying the inevitable.’ 

She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘You never could resist the sound of your own voice.’

They wandered through a door frame that had become overgrown with jasmine and ivy. This, he had informed her, was the library. The lady of the house had considered this to be her favourite room, or so Solas had said. Moss-coated rocks and three crumbling walls were all that remained of it now. She looked up and could see a few early stars twinkling through the twilight haze.

Solas tucked himself into an empty window ledge. ‘Tell me of the Dalish girl.’

She raised a brow. ‘I never said she was a girl.’

‘Tell me of the trickster god.’

‘_Solas_.’

‘Was that his name?’

Fine. Let him have his story. ‘Yes. His name was Solas, and he appeared to her as a humble traveller, clad in shades of ragged sage.’

‘Such an unflattering colour.’

‘Indeed. It dulled his complexion and obscured his fine silhouette, but this was all part of his glamour.’

He ran thoughtful fingers along his jawline. ‘I am intrigued.’

She went to his window and found a string of ivy to twist between her five remaining fingers while she mulled over the details of her plot.

‘The girl was a hunter,’ she continued in a more narrative tone. ‘He found her camping in the woods one night. She was busy binding a nasty cut on her hand.’ 

Solas, who had been watching her play with the ivy, set about unlacing it from her fingers. 

‘I hope he offered to help her.’

She shrugged. ‘Naturally.’

‘Did she accept?’

‘He observed the cut and declared it poisoned. She wouldn’t make it through the night. “Follow me,” he beckoned, “I know of an enchanted tree nearby. One bite of its fruit will reverse the effects of the poison and heal your hand scarlessly.” His eyes were all sincerity, but the true spell was in his voice.’

‘His voice? Good to know.’ He slipped from the windowsill to stand at her side. Her hand, now free of ivy, became newly laced between his fingers. ‘Did she follow Solas to the tree?’

‘She did.’

He pressed his nose to her temple. His words came soft and sudden as he asked, ‘Did she taste the fruit he offered?’

‘Of course not.’ She freed her hand and turned to face him. Her traitorous fingers traced a line along his bottom lip, then down the centre of his pout and along his chin. ‘Who would be so foolish?’

Solas pressed two small, slow kisses into the corners of her lips. ‘Who indeed.’

His next kiss came swift and hungry. He met her open mouth with the bittersweet tang of apple still lingering on his tongue. She gave him time to reacquaint himself before returning fire, eliciting enthusiastic moans which rumbled between their tightly-pressed chests. 

As expected, his hands made a direct descent down her back, then lower still until he found the flimsy edge of her nightshirt. The Fade always made Solas brave. She felt the fabric lift over her thighs and broke free from their kiss long enough to fire him a hard look. 

‘This is a terrible idea,’ she said.

Solas released her shirt. ‘Not as terrible as the ending of your story.’

‘I tried to warn you.’ 

She shrugged him off and placed a small distance between their bodies; a gesture that only served to make matters of temptation worse. The fuller view only fueled her need to touch him. His own need was unavoidably obvious beneath the folds of his loose-hanging nightshirt. 

‘Terrible. Terrible idea.’ She exhaled sharply through one side of her mouth. 

Following her line of sight, Solas beamed a knowing smile. His hands went obligingly behind his back. Taking fistfuls of fabric, he drew the shirt from his body in one smooth criss-cross motion and cast it to the ground like a challenge. 

A challenge she accepted, albeit less gracefully. With an effort of teeth and single handedness, she managed to shuffle free from the fabric. 

And so they stood, eyes locked and naked as nugs in the midst of a Fade ruin. 

‘What if I wake up?’ she whispered. 

‘I’ll find you again,’ he said, making no effort to hide the trembling in his tone. ‘If it takes a dozen dreams, I’ll find you again. We’ll finish this.’

Solas took her hips between his hands and guided her body down, ensuring her back was comfortably cushioned upon a soft patch of moss.

‘Alright,’ she said, securing her grip on his freckled shoulder. ‘You should go first.’

He placed half a dozen lazy kisses along her belly, each landing lower than the first. She felt his nose brush against her thigh as he shook his head. 

‘Not this time.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my love letter to the voice of Solas, kind humans (and elves) xx 
> 
> I know this isn't how the Fade works and it's unrealistic for any Lavellan to get back with her sort-of-evil elvish ex so soon after that traumatic Trespasser confrontation... 
> 
> But, like, screw it? I was in a mood and I ran with it and, heck, I had a hecking good time... did you? :)


End file.
